Author(s): Ryszard Techman / Language(s): Polish
Issue: 7/2023
Eponymous church accounting book from Lutheran parish in Szumiąca near Kamień Pomorski from the years 1730–1792 was discovered in Gdańsk. The annual balance sheet was approved by the parish patrons. Control of parish books was coducted by praepositus of Chapter of Kamień. Research was undertaken with use of actor-network theory (ANT) corelated with timeline. Every person, institution, phenomenon, object or animal can become a network actor and create a network of connections. The book was placed in the church structures of the Kamień Chapter, an accounting system based on a combination of French and German accounting, and in the accounting currency system of that time. The graph presenting the Book as an actor-network shows the connections of accounting accounts with quantitative research, and accounting maxims with qualitative analyses. For a better understanding of the ANT theory adapted to historical research, the publication includes the results of an analysis of the purchasing power of silver contained in a good penny, taking into account inflation against the background of historical events. Accounting sentences describing people, places and events allowed for the analysis of connections with the resources of the State Archives in Szczecin.The article characterizes the organization and course of the return to the country of Polish repatriates from the British occupation zone in Germany through Szczecin in the first years after the end of World War II. This planned and mass operation involved thousands of Poles, especially the so-called forced laborers sent to work in the Third Reich, prisoners of war imprisoned in camps and demobilized soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Szczecin played a special role in this proces due to its location near the border with Germany in the new geopolitical reality, its location on an important sea route to the Baltic Sea and favorable conditions for the use of road and rail communication. Not without significance was the good preparation of Stage Point No. 2 of the State Repatriation Office in the city on the Oder River, which sometimes received several thousand people a day. The author preceded analysis of the action of return of the Polish population to their homeland with information about the negotiations on this matter between the interested authorities of Great Britain, the USSR and Poland. Repatriation carried out by road, sea and rail brought significant results, as nearly 265,000 people came to Szczecin, the vast majority of whom were then transported by train to the interior of the country, where their families were already waiting. A few remained in the city, some lived in Western Pomerania, being an addition for the population consisted of settlers arriving from the East.
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